Chemical Week

EUROPE/MIDEASTIneos Confirms Plans forEthylene Plant in GermanyIneos has confirmed CW’s exclusive reportthat it plans to build an ethylene plant atthe company’s Wilhelmshaven, Germanysite (CW, Jan. 23, 2002, p. 19). Ineos alsosays it plans to build a chlor-alkali plant andexpand polyvinyl chloride (PVC) capacityat Wilhelmshaven, and construct a 275-kmpipeline that will transport ethylene fromWilhelmshaven to Marl, Germany. Theestimated cost of the project is €1 billion($1.25 billion) and completion is scheduledby 2008, Ineos says. Associated investmentsin utilities and other services are expected totop €500 million.Ineos CEO Jim Ratcliffe presented the plansto the state government of Lower Saxony,Germany at a meeting in Hanover on May24. Ratcliffe confirmed at the meeting thatIneos would soon launch a “pre-engineeringstudy” for the project costing €15 million-€20 million. The study is likely to be completedin about six months, he says. Ratcliffe,and Christian Wulff, prime minister ofLower Saxony, signed a joint declaration forthe study, and the state and German federalgovernments pledged unspecified “financialsupport.” The state government says it hasestablished a working group for “facilitating,coordinating, and supporting the project.”Further details were not disclosed, butIneos sources earlier told CW that theWilhelmshaven cracker would have capacityfor 750,000 m.t./year of ethylene. The plantwill use ethane feedstock. PVC producerEVC International, an Ineos subsidiary,consumes ethylene at Wilhelmshaven that issupplied mainly from Huntsman’s Wilton,U.K. cracker. That source will disappear inlate 2007, however, when Huntsman commissionsa 400,000-m.t./year low-densitypolyethylene plant at Wilton.The Wilhelmshaven plant would be the firstgrassroots ethylene unit to be built in Europesince BASF’s Antwerp cracker came onstreamin 1994. It will also mark Ineos’s entry into ethyleneproduction, and provide much-neededback-integration for EVC, analysts say.The chlor-alkali project will likely involvereplacing the mercury-cell chlor-alkaliunit of Ineos Chlor, an Ineos subsidiary, atWilhelmshaven, with a membrane-cell unit,analysts say. The Wilhelmshaven chlor-alkaliplant has capacity for 130,000 m.t./year ofchlorine.Wilhelmshaven is EVC’s biggest productionsite for PVC. The company says it has350,000 m.t./year of vinyl chloride monomer,and 320,000 m.t./year of suspension-gradePVC capacity there.Ineos has no production at Marl. Theplanned pipeline to Marl would supply othercompanies that consume ethylene there,Ineos says. Ethylene consumers at the siteinclude Lanxess, Sasol Chemie, and Vestolit.ChemSite (Marl), created by Degussa in 1997,has responsibility for attracting chemicalinvestors to the Marl complex. Marl is alsoconnected to northwestern Europe’s ARGethylene pipeline network. —IAN YOUNG■ Kemira Exits FertilizersKemira says it has divested its 14.6%stake in Kemira GrowHow via a placementthat was lead managed by ABNAmro Rothschild. Shares were sold toinstitutional investors in Finland andoverseas, and raised €50.1 million($63 million), Kemira says. GrowHow,the former fertilizers business of Kemira,was spun off via an initial public offeringof shares last year (CW, Oct. 20,2004, p. 5). The Finnish government isGrowHow’s biggest shareholder, with a30% stake■ Commission Ends Carbon Black ProbeCabot says that it has received notificationfrom the European Commission thatit has ended its investigation into possibleprice-fixing in the European carbon blackindustry. European authorities started aninvestigation of the industry in November2002 with surprise inspections at theoffices several carbon black makers inEurope (CW, Dec. 4, 2002, p. 13).www.chemweek.com Chemical Week, June 8, 2005 19